Golden in Death(42)

Catherine managed to drink more water. “The world’s still going on outside this house. But for me, everything stopped. Do you know what I mean?”

“I do.”

“I need Rob. I need my husband. I need to tell him.”

“Where would he be now?”

“At the store.”

“Why don’t we send Officer Krasinsky and his partner to the store, and have your husband taken home? We’ll take you home. We’ll…” She started to say notify, amended. “We’ll talk with your son-in-law, and have him and your grandsons brought to you.”

“Yes, yes, then we’ll be together. We need to be together now.” She swiped at her eyes, then reached out and gripped Eve’s hand with her still damp one. “Nadine Furst wrote truth. You care. It shows. It matters.”

Peabody had started back as Eve walked toward the front of the house. “I’ve got Krasinsky and his partner taking the father and the bookstore, and pulled a couple more uniforms in to finish the canvass.”

“Good.” Eve rubbed at the tension in the back of her neck. “We need an escort to take Ms. Fitzwalter home, and let’s have her taken around the back. She doesn’t need to see what’s going on out here.”

“I’ll call for transpo. Look, why don’t I walk her around when they get here? So it’s not another face, but one she’s already seen.”

“Yeah, do that. Go, I don’t know, sit with her until. I’m going to start upstairs.”

“Should I have EDD come in, scan the electronics?”

“Yeah. Allied?”

“Tracked the package. You were right, another drop-off, twenty-three hundred. The charge? To an account of a ninety-three-year-old woman who reported her ’link missing less than an hour ago.”

“We’ll talk to her, see if she can pinpoint when it might’ve been lifted. Go back with the mother.”

On the bedroom level, Eve found another home office. The husband’s, no doubt, she thought as she stepped inside. Larger than the one on the main level, and not nearly as tidy. Clean, she noted, but with a desk cluttered in the way someone busy and handling several tasks might clutter. Books again, the real deal again, but not all perfectly arranged. Since they were stacked, leaned, piled with no particular system, Eve concluded the victim hadn’t fussed in here.

A guitar stood on a stand in the corner. The single pillow on the couch looked like one you’d actually put your head on when you stretched out.

Moving to the desk, she poked at books, discs, a couple of legal pads where he’d made actual handwritten notes.

She lifted one, frowned at his scrawling handwriting—worse than hers—but decided she’d found either attempts at poetry or song lyrics.

She unearthed more handwritten notes, realized they related to classroom projects.

Discuss how Shakespeare used music to add drama or levity to his works. Can you select current music to contemporize a particular scene or play? Provide examples.

Possible spring project for Shakespeare Club?



She found other notes relating to books, authors—some she’d heard of, some she hadn’t, but saw the defining pattern.

She took his chair, gave the computer a shot, and found her luck was in. Not password protected.

She found a family calendar listing schedules for his wife, his sons, family events. The older kid played basketball, the younger hooked with the drama club. So games, practice, rehearsal, performances.

She dug a little deeper, barely glanced up when Peabody came in.

“She’s on her way home, and Officer Krasinsky notified the father, and they’re on their way there, too. How do you want to notify the spouse?”

“We’ll do it. He’s a lit professor at Columbia.” Eve sat back. “Maybe it’s a big stretch to connect that to the headmaster of a private academy, but it’s the only link we have. We’ll come back for the rest of the house,” she decided as she rose. “He’s in class now, according to his schedule. We’ll go to him.”

“It’s a pretty big stretch,” Peabody agreed, quickening her pace as Eve jogged downstairs. “And the academics weren’t the targets. There might be a connection with Thane. It could be the vic knew his wife, maybe helped her get clear.”

“Worth looking into. Hold on.”

Eve hunted up Junta to let her know they had to do a notification so she should seal the scene.

“We’ll look into that,” Eve continued as they went outside, where numerous people gave the sweeper van and black-and-whites the wondering eye. “Meanwhile, do a run on Professor Jay Duran before we get to him. And find out which building at the college we’ll find him in.”

“I bet it’s the same as where Mr. Mira teaches.”

“Huh. Hadn’t thought of that.” Eve used the dash ’link, contacted Mira’s office. Hit the guard dog. “Listen, don’t screw with me. I need to ask her one damn question, so put me through.”

“She’s preparing for a session” came the admin’s stiff reply.

“I’ve got a woman’s body fluids on my boots, and I swear to every god there is, those boots will kick your ass if you don’t put me through. One damn question.”

“Please hold.”